D&D 5E Help me understand & find the fun in OC/neo-trad play...

[Not a Decepticon]

I think they're (and I'm) disagreeing with the idea that Apocalypse World is the "face" of Neotrad. The article defining it for purposes of this discussion cites two types of DnD (3e Living Greyhawk and Critical Role's 5e campaigns) as the most-obvious, best known Neotrad games.

We did establish the article did extremely poor job at defining neotrad and basically turned it into an excuse to whine about "kids these days". It failed to diffirentiate it from "forge" games as well, which is for me where 3rd edition belongs. Hell, I even objected to the NAME the author picked, as I beleive it was choosen as an insult. We're waay past treating the article as ultimate authority.

 

[pemerton]

Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark are literally the first types of games people point out as examples of "Neotrad"

Not in my experience. In my experience, the contrasts that @zakael19 drew upthread are commonly drawn between (at least) some of these RPGs, and neo-trad games.

Eg the motto for BitD, I think, is "play your character as if it were a stolen car". This is not a good fit for the neotrad orientation towards the character and their arc.

I don't think AW is good for neotrad sensibilities either. It puts characters at too much risk.

Burning Wheel would be another game that illustrates the contrast between neotrad and "story now".

They are first games paraded around as "tyranny of fun" or "taking GM's power away" or "making everything about player decisions".

Sure. And no one disputes that neotrad games draw from the "indie"/"story now" techniques. But the sensibilities are different.

the moment they don't fit the horribly negative potrayal you people are painting, they suddenly "don't count". no true Scotsman, that's what this is.

This is completely unfair and untrue as far as @zakael19 is concerned. He enjoys both "indie"/"story now"-type play and neotrad play. He just - in my view, correctly - is sensitive to the differences between them.

I've GMed In A Wicked Age for neotrad players (whose main game is 5e D&D) and for "indie" players. The difference in approach and expectation was pretty marked.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Not in my experience. In my experience, the contrasts that @zakael19 drew upthread are commonly drawn between (at least) some of these RPGs, and neo-trad games.

Eg the motto for BitD, I think, is "play your character as if it were a stolen car". This is not a good fit for the neotrad orientation towards the character and their arc.

I don't think AW is good for neotrad sensibilities either. It puts characters at too much risk.

Burning Wheel would be another game that illustrates the contrast between neotrad and "story now".

Sure. And no one disputes that neotrad games draw from the "indie"/"story now" techniques. But the sensibilities are different.

This is completely unfair and untrue as far as @zakael19 is concerned. He enjoys both "indie"/"story now"-type play and neotrad play. He just - in my view, correctly - is sensitive to the differences between them.

I've GMed In A Wicked Age for neotrad players (whose main game is 5e D&D) and for "indie" players. The difference in approach and expectation was pretty marked.

Except that "story first" is not one of the categories in the 6 philosophies. You literally just pull out a new category out of your butt the moment the argument doesn't go your way, that's an equivalent of picking the goalpost and putting it on a plane to Ohio. This is a cowardly, childish way of arguing and it betrays you jsut want to reduce "neotrad" to a strawman of whatever style of play you dislike.

Second point - if we try to map the "story first" to the 6 philosophies, it would be assigned to trad. And neither PbtA nor FotD are trad because trad cares for the GM's story at the expense of player agency, while these games put player agency first and foremost. They are "story first" in that they put story over mechanics. But they're not putting the story over the character, the story IS character-driven.

This once again drives home that the definition we are working with is bad. It was made to whine and complain and it disrespects a wide variety of games solely to bash 5th edition (and third, that doesn't even fit the author's own definition) and every time people realize that this stealth insult applies to something they do like, they need to move the goalpost to remove it.

As a matter of fact, combined with arbitrary divide between classic and OSR, that a lot of times boils down to distinction without the difference, it makes me question validity of ssix philosophies as a whole. Maybe someone should rework it from a tool to bash games you don't like, into something actually useful.

 

[Aldarc]

FWIW, I checked on Fabula Ultima's Discord whether creator Emmanuel Galletto said anything about "Neo-Trad." In sum, they said that if people thought that FU was "Neo-Trad," that they would feel insulted by that. I guess that they do not consider Fabula Ultima to be "Neo-Trad." Maybe they believe that the game is more Narrativist/Story than Neo-Trad. To be fair, the Free League sense of the term also assumed things like published adventures. These are things we can find with Free League or Monte Cook Games' Cypher System but are totally absent with Fabula Ultima.

 

[pemerton]

Except that "story first" is not one of the categories in the 6 philosophies. You literally just pull out a new category out of your butt the moment the argument doesn't go your way, that's an equivalent of picking the goalpost and putting it on a plane to Ohio. This is a cowardly, childish way of arguing and it betrays you jsut want to reduce "neotrad" to a strawman of whatever style of play you dislike.

I didn't say anything about "story first". Nor did I quote the six categories. I did talk about my own play experience with In A Wicked Age; and I did reference the play advice for BitD.

If you think that Fate, played more-or-less canonically, and Apocalypse World, played more-or-less canonically, are much the same sort of play experience, well that's what you think. I can't gainsay that. I can say that I don't think the same way.

 

[tetrasodium]

FWIW, I checked on Fabula Ultima's Discord whether creator Emmanuel Galletto said anything about "Neo-Trad." In sum, they said that if people thought that FU was "Neo-Trad," that they would feel insulted by that. I guess that they do not consider Fabula Ultima to be "Neo-Trad." Maybe they believe that the game is more Narrativist/Story than Neo-Trad. To be fair, the Free League sense of the term also assumed things like published adventures. These are things we can find with Free League or Monte Cook Games' Cypher System but are totally absent with Fabula Ultima.

Not surprising. No system that supports the kind of gameplay neotrad describes other than perhaps the one that coined the term uses it. They all use various well defined terms. That leaves people to either talk about the kinds of gameplay those games support well or personal definitions for basically everything.

 

[Wolfpack48]

False dichotomy. "Either simulation or gamism" completely removes roleplay. It's either "you're here for GM'S WORLD and GM'S story" r "you're here to roll dumb dice!". You completely deleted roleplay. And I'm not showing up to a game to roleplay an useless duck and be butt of other players' jokes, it sounds like for ours of being bored, feeling useless, all for one jerk's sick power trip.

You'd need to know the motive of the GM -- you're assuming 100% he's on a "sick power trip." Typically, a GM is providing a scenario to be run through with various challenges, and this could be one, and perhaps roleplaying it is another. Don't ascribe every event that's not under the player's complete control being motivated by taking away player agency. We all have events that happen that are not under our control, and it can be interesting to deal with them. For example, a scenario that starts with the players on a lifeboat rowing away from a sinking ship wasn't controlled by the players. I suppose you could walk out of the scenario opening because players didn't control it, but then you've made a decision to limit the types of games you play in.

 

[zakael19]

Except that "story first" is not one of the categories in the 6 philosophies. You literally just pull out a new category out of your butt the moment the argument doesn't go your way, that's an equivalent of picking the goalpost and putting it on a plane to Ohio. This is a cowardly, childish way of arguing and it betrays you jsut want to reduce "neotrad" to a strawman of whatever style of play you dislike.

Second point - if we try to map the "story first" to the 6 philosophies, it would be assigned to trad. And neither PbtA nor FotD are trad because trad cares for the GM's story at the expense of player agency, while these games put player agency first and foremost. They are "story first" in that they put story over mechanics. But they're not putting the story over the character, the story IS character-driven.

This once again drives home that the definition we are working with is bad. It was made to whine and complain and it disrespects a wide variety of games solely to bash 5th edition (and third, that doesn't even fit the author's own definition) and every time people realize that this stealth insult applies to something they do like, they need to move the goalpost to remove it.

As a matter of fact, combined with arbitrary divide between classic and OSR, that a lot of times boils down to distinction without the difference, it makes me question validity of ssix philosophies as a whole. Maybe someone should rework it from a tool to bash games you don't like, into something actually useful.

Why the hostility? Good god. “Story now” narrativism is maybe not one the styles of play in the blog post, but it’s the entire style of play the Forge games (AW) were created to promote. It resists the concept of a character arc / actualized backstory beyond how any of those things apply to the situation happening right now, in this moment. And then you play to see what the next moment is.

I said “huh, I don’t see how BITD / PBTA gets to neotrad” but the latter is such a broad category that some others have pointed out games under it which absolutely lean into neotrad ethos - so if that’s what you were pulling from, like I said, my brush was too broad.

@Aldarc that’s interesting, and maybe points at neotrad being a term people just throw at games they don’t like? Whatever it is, FU seems purpose built to deliver the sort of entirely GM constrained character arc/development focused play with a core assumption of hero success that is to my mind the defining center of whatever this is we’re talking about here.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You'd need to know the motive of the GM -- you're assuming 100% he's on a "sick power trip." Typically, a GM is providing a scenario to be run through with various challenges, and this could be one, and perhaps roleplaying it is another. Don't ascribe every event that's not under the player's complete control being motivated by taking away player agency. We all have events that happen that are not under our control, and it can be interesting to deal with them. For example, a scenario that starts with the players on a lifeboat rowing away from a sinking ship wasn't controlled by the players. I suppose you could walk out of the scenario opening because players didn't control it, but then you've made a decision to limit the types of games you play in.

Correct. For my part as DM or player, controlling the actions of the PC is all the player agency I need or want. There's nothing wrong with a game that has the player do more than that, but it's not my preference on either side of the screen, at least at the table. Incorporating player input prior to the start of play? Totally welcome, but I still prefer the final say be the DM's.

All of this is just subjective preference anyway, and my championing of mine doesn't mean there's anything wrong with a different playstyle, be it neo-trad or any other. Just not my cup of tea.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Correct. For my part as DM or player, controlling the actions of the PC is all the player agency I need or want. There's nothing wrong with a game that has the player do more than that, but it's not my preference on either side of the screen, at least at the table. Incorporating player input prior to the start of play? Totally welcome, but I still prefer the final say be the DM's.

All of this is just subjective preference anyway, and my championing of mine doesn't mean there's anything wrong with a different playstyle, be it neo-trad or any other. Just not my cup of tea.

In our games, we do develop backstory, goals and even a potential character story arc at character creation. We do a session zero. But we also allow for GM events (positive and adverse) for characters to react to throughout the scenario and campaign. Players also can assert or suggest things that can make their way into the story as well. But the (non-tyrant) GM is the arbiter.